


want you in my room

by PeppyBismilk



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (in chapter 2 and post-timeskip), Angst, Canon Compliant, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:29:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21616882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeppyBismilk/pseuds/PeppyBismilk
Summary: Sylvain never sleeps in his room, but that doesn’t mean it goes unused.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 18
Kudos: 349





	1. academy phase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time, it happens by accident.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is rated T and contains no sexual content. warning for references to vomiting from illness

The first time, it’s an accident. A concussion, Felix suspects, but he’ll deal with that tomorrow. Distance and time slip away as he stumbles into the first room his feet carry him to; he’s lived here long enough to trust his instincts.

The pillow is too puffy but it takes his weight just the same, and he blacks out before he can overthink the scent of the covers beneath him. 

When he comes to at some vicious hour of the morning, the smell is oppressive. It invades his nose, at once familiar and repulsive. 

His neck aches and his head is worse—will Manuela be awake if he goes to the infirmary? The question is just as valid at three in the morning as it would be at three in the afternoon, so he drags himself out of bed and collides with a desk.

Books and papers fall as Felix steadies himself on the chair that shouldn’t be where it is. His vision tunnels into to nothing and he screws his eyes shut until the fog clears. 

Crouching down, he reaches for the scattered papers. One of them bears lipstick—a kiss print in gaudy crimson. Felix recoils. Cold dread floods his chest. This letter is not for him.

He knows exactly what he’ll find when his eyes land on the cover of one of the books he knocked over: a leadership primer from Professor Byleth, so useless to Felix that he doesn’t even remember the title. 

“Here,” he had muttered when he had tossed the book to Sylvain after class. “I’ve got better things to do.”

It’s definitely a concussion, because his addled brain had taken him to Sylvain’s room. 

Felix springs to his feet and blood rushes his throbbing head. He leaves the clutter (Sylvain won’t notice) and hobbles out. The hall is clear, of course. Everyone’s asleep and Sylvain isn’t coming back until he’s had his fill of whoever’s bed he’s warming. 

The thought hits him like another blow to the head.

“You had better be dying,” Manuela growls from behind her door. When she opens it and sees Felix, her eyes soften and she rushes him inside. “Why didn’t you come right away?”

“I’m fine,” Felix lies. 

He sleeps it off in the infirmary bed, dreaming of overstuffed pillows, stale blankets, and red lipstick. 

~

When it happens again, it’s not a mistake. No one should see Felix when he’s this sick, and he’d rather throw up in Sylvain’s room than his own. And now he knows Sylvain doesn’t lock his door.

It’s just Felix and his bucket in here, and if he’s lucky, Dimitri won’t hear him dry heaving. 

_That boar is too bloodthirsty to notice_ , Felix consoles himself. And he’s not vomiting blood, though at the rate he’s going, he may soon start. There can’t be anything left of his stomach. 

He doesn’t dare take it any further, but he can accept that being in this room comforts him.

As a child, if someone sneezed in the next village over, Felix caught a cold. Stomach viruses hit like tornadoes, invariably demolishing Felix while leaving his friends and family mostly unscathed. 

And every time Felix ran to fill the nearest vessel, Sylvain was there to hold his hair back. Even as a boy, Sylvain had possessed a steel constitution and a dog’s sense of hearing. No matter where Felix (and his catlike sense of pride) tried to hide, Sylvain found him, rubbed his back, and didn’t flinch from the smell.

Felix always made a stink about it, but he never resisted.

Sylvain can’t hear him tonight, or if he can, he’s too busy to care. Felix clutches his stomach and wonders if it was the stew he ate for lunch.

Thinking of food is a mistake, and he makes use of the bucket. Savoring the moment of relief that comes between waves of nausea, he lies down on the floor and tries to will himself asleep. 

It’s no use. Closing his eyes makes him dizzy, so he opens them. He wrinkles his nose, and not because he can smell his own vomit. It’s filthy under Sylvain’s bed. Shirts, smallclothes, stockings lie on the floor, carelessly strewn about like a pig ransacked a tailor’s shop. Felix’s stomach lurches—everything is too small for Sylvain. 

Coming here was a mistake. Sylvain is exactly the same but nothing is how it used to be. Felix barely makes it back to his room in time to abuse his bucket again.

He barely hears a soft knock at the door, but his heart is too eager.

“Felix, are you unwell?”

The voice from outside makes him retch even when he’s feeling well.

“Go away, boar.” He spits the words into the bucket as if he can wash them out of his mouth.

“Can I bring you—”

Felix cuts him off with a growl. “Leave me!”

Dimitri’s door clicks shut and Felix hangs his head. How fitting that his feeble stomach should be the only constant amid the chaos.

~ ~ 

Felix and Sylvain have always reacted to loss in different ways. Tonight is no different. Felix is curled in a ball on Sylvain’s bed and Sylvain…

Felix doesn’t want to think about it. 

It’s the third time he’s ended up here in as many months and he’s feeling less dramatic than the last time, but it’s been a grueling trip back from Faerghus, and cleaning up after his father is always exhausting.

Sylvain knows. He knows better than anyone. 

“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he had assured Felix when they’d returned to the Monastery. 

Felix had sneered at him. “Don’t patronize me.”

“Okay, okay. Sorry.” Sylvain had forced out a little cough of a laugh to break the tension. “You just looked like you needed to hear it.”

“Innocent people died. What I need,” Felix remembers spitting the words though his teeth, “is to train. You should join me.”

Rejection still stings where Sylvain clapped him on the back. “You need rest. Training can wait.” Then, that twinkle in his eye, that damnable wink. “But if you need to blow off steam, we could find some girls and…”

Felix hadn’t stuck around to hear the end of the sentence. 

His bones still vibrate from hacking at the training dummy but it’s never going to be enough. Maybe if Sylvain would train with him, maybe if Sylvain would put any effort into his training at all…

No, the burden is Felix’s to bear. He lost Dimitri, he’s losing Sylvain, Ingrid is bound to get herself killed if she keeps her head in the clouds, and all this team spirit going around means he has more at stake. 

It’s not that everyone else is weak; he just needs to be stronger. 

But right now Felix needs sleep and Sylvain’s fluffy pillow is the closest he can get to comfort. It’s not like anyone else is using the bed. Sylvain hasn’t slept here since before they left for Fraldarius territory and Felix wishes he couldn’t tell.

That he keeps coming here means nothing. It means even less that Sylvain never does. Felix isn’t waiting for him. He can’t reclaim something he never really had. 

He just wants to rest.

~ ~ ~

Felix trains later than usual tonight. It's only because he’s so tired that he goes there.

Tonight, the door doesn't push open.

_ Don’t tell me that fool finally wised up and used the lock._ Sylvain keeps valuables in his room, after all. 

Felix can pick locks, but it’s Sylvain so he tests the knob first.

The gasp that comes from inside throbs like a stab wound.

“Is there someone at the door?”

A girl.

“It’s fine, baby. I locked it.”

Sylvain.

Felix knows better than to expect anything else. He sleeps, dreamless, on his flat pillow, and he’s still tired when he wakes. 

~ ~ ~ ~ 

Weeks go by before he tries again. 

It’s an argument that provokes it, the same damn argument they have all the damn time. They haven’t spoken in a day and Felix hates how much that bothers him.

The door’s unlocked, cracked open again. “Fool,” he mutters. He aims the word at Sylvain but he may as well say it to the mirror.

He knows where everything is now, even in the dark, and he pulls back the covers. Sinks into bed. Leans back into a warm, solid body. Freezes. 

Felix has no right to be mad at Sylvain for using his own bed, but he is. Still, it isn’t fair to take it out on Sylvain. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” 

Had Sylvain even been asleep? 

“I’ll go.” Felix tries to get up. Sylvain takes him by the wrist. Not hard.

“You don’t have to.”

“This bed is tiny.” Felix doesn’t try to break free. “It barely fits you.”

“You don’t take up much room.”

He jerks out of Sylvain’s grip. “Now I’m definitely leaving.”

“Please stay,” Sylvain says, and he grabs Felix by the waist this time. Felix’s racing heart jumps before his head can react, landing somewhere in his throat. 

His head catches up quickly. “I’m not going to warm your bed because your latest conquest kicked you out.”

Sylvain lifts his hand immediately, but he says, soft, “You know it’s not like that.”

Felix knows exactly how it is. How it isn’t. He settles back into bed.

“And you know I don’t think you’re a waste of space,” Felix says when Sylvain’s arm comes to rest on his hip. Where else is he going to put it in this little bed?

Sylvain chuckles and Felix feels it through his back, through the mattress. “I figure you’d have ditched me by now if you did.”

“Still, I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” Sylvain says. “Sorry I haven’t been here.”

They say things they don’t mean all the time. Always have, probably always will. It works for them.

But that means Felix doesn’t really have to apologize, and neither does Sylvain. They know each other, understand each other well enough to let those things go unsaid. 

They say them anyway. And tonight, it’s enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is unbetaed and i have a plane to catch, but i had to get some feelings out (and by that i mean vaguely hint at them)
> 
> named after a carly rae jepsen song that is much happier and sexier than this fic


	2. war phase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The more things change, the more they stay the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here comes the sexy part

Garreg Mach Monastery lies in ruins, but Felix’s room remains exactly as he left it: stark, untouched, unused. The dust isn't new, though it’s heavier now.

He stares for a moment, nostalgic and weak, but this isn’t where he belongs.

The boar doesn’t sleep; Felix strides past his empty room and emotions twist his stomach. He calls them what they are now, fear and worry, but naming them doesn’t ease the pain or stop the ulcer he’s been nursing for the better part of his life.

Not until he reaches Sylvain’s room does he feel at ease. They’ve kept in touch over the years, as close as two friends fighting a war on different fronts can stay. 

_ Friends _ is easy, safe, and certain, but it’s wrong. Felix missed all his friends, hated that they were too far away to protect, but Sylvain…

Sylvain still doesn’t train as much as he needs to, still gets distracted in battle, and his chest and arms make it too easy to sleep at night. Damn him for giving Felix a habit, a weakness. Like a baby with a security blanket, Felix can hardly sleep without him. It’s foolish and pathetic—it’s been years.

At least sleeping lightly is a boon in war. No one sneaks up on Felix. 

Sylvain’s bed has always been his favorite armor and it still fits, only now the sheets stay warm because Sylvain dried them with fire magic. He didn’t offer to wash and dry Felix’s sheets; he knows Felix won’t use them.

The question is whether Sylvain will use his own.

Just because Felix hasn’t distracted himself with (much) flesh doesn’t mean he expects the same of Sylvain, and he isn’t foolish enough to expect Sylvain to feel anything but fraternal affection for him.

Curiosity, distance, and opportunity drove Felix to explore his desires with others—a woman from the commissary, a man from the cavalry, a fellow swordsman—but after the third time left him wanting, he entrusted his baser urges to his own sword hand. 

Swinging a sword holds more satisfaction, anyway. And sex is Sylvain’s sword, because that’s the only way Felix can rationalize it. 

Part of him gets it; the crackle of Sylvain’s magic lingers on the sheets with the heat, and it sends shivers up Felix’s spine. It’s not the fire, not literally; Sylvain’s always been magical, even before he studied Reason, and watching him dedicate his passion to something other than chasing skirts leaves Felix’s skin singed and singing. 

It’s not enough. Sylvain’s going to get hurt if he doesn’t train harder, but five years of fighting and sleeping without Sylvain at his side have caged Felix’s expectations. Sylvain’s close enough to protect now, and this—his bed, his room, his camaraderie—has to be enough, because Felix can withstand a blow but heartache might destroy him.

The carnal feelings, the urges that only stir when he thinks about Sylvain, will have to wait. He refuses to jerk off in Sylvain’s bed. Somehow—the fluffy pillow burns beneath his cheek—Sylvain would know, and Felix would never hear the end of it.

Sylvain would cackle. And then (Felix scowls), he’d suggest they find some girls, maybe joke about having (Felix’s stomach lurches) group sex.

That thought helps the urges pass, though his dreams have other ideas. 

Sylvain toys with his hair, kisses a lock, _I like it down, I like it longer,_ and brushes the ends over Felix’s lips.

_Stop that,_ it tickles and he doesn’t want to kiss his own hair. Felix pushes Sylvain’s hand out of the way and reaches up, _Yours got longer, too,_ but he can’t kiss it unless Sylvain comes closer. His fingers tangle in amber waves, clench into fists, and yank Sylvain’s face to his. They kiss hard enough to burst blood vessels. 

_Slow down,_ Sylvain strokes his face as he says it. _We have our whole lives together._

What a fool he is, talking about forever in the middle of a war.

_What war, Felix?_ Sylvain smiles like sunlight on silver. _It’s just you and me, till death do us part._

That’s not how the promise went, that’s a—

_You’re not having second thoughts, are you?_ Sylvain laughs, and sunbeams hit the silver on his finger, real silver this time. _Bit late for that, isn’t it? You’re stuck with me now._

Of course. _Damn right, I am. I’m your husband._

“Husband?” The mattress creaks, and Sylvain is in front of him, not atop him, and warm. Even a pitch black room can’t kill the gleam in his eyes. “Some things never change.”

“What?” The dregs of sleep dampen Felix’s voice and mind.

“You still talk in your sleep,” Sylvain replies. He pushes Felix’s hair out of his face and the dream comes rushing back. What was it Sylvain said?

_ Husband?  _

Sylvain twists a strand of Felix’s hair. “Dreaming about me, Felix?”

“No,” Felix lies. As if they’ll live that long. As if Sylvain will ever settle down if they do, as if he’ll ever be anyone’s husband. 

_ Try me.  _ Sylvain doesn’t say it, but the promise lies in his eyes. 

Peace is a dream, a tease, and Felix has neither the time nor the audacity.

He lets Sylvain hold him anyway. 

Night after night, Sylvain holds him, and every night it hurts a little less (but a little more, too). The war takes and takes, and someday it’s going to take one of them from the other, so every day it doesn’t, they hold each other a little tighter. Sylvain, the fool, takes a blow meant for him and Felix can’t breathe. Death draws closer than ever before and so do they, but the words remain unsaid. 

They talk about Dimitri, the war, the professor, the dining hall special, the way things were, news from the troops, everything but  _ this. _

It’s enough.

Except…

Except, some nights, Felix pushes his ass into Sylvain and Sylvain grabs his hips and holds him in place (but doesn’t give him the friction he craves). Some mornings, Sylvain’s erection juts into Felix’s thigh and doesn’t go away and Sylvain doesn’t make a move (but Felix wishes he would). If Felix could just guide Sylvain’s hand between his legs or kiss him or say something kind to him for once in his life, they might not leave the bed the same way they got in it. 

_ it’s enough it’s enough it’s enough it’s _

“Sylvain.”

“Felix.” Sylvain sounds sheepish, and maybe Felix’s tone was too harsh. “Sor—”

“Don’t.” Felix grits his teeth. “Don’t apologize.” 

“Okay.” Sylvain stretches out the first syllable. His breath warms Felix’s ear. “Does that mean you aren’t going to maim me?”

“Keep talking and I might change my mind.” Even as a grown man, it’s easier to bare his teeth than his heart, and Felix growls in frustration. Sylvain sighs.

“Well, that’s one way to take care of it.” Of course, Sylvain takes it wrong. “Not my preferred way, but I can take a hint.” 

He tries to shift away but Felix is faster. Bold or desperate, his hand lands on Sylvain’s ass like a claim.

“Felix?” As if Sylvain doesn’t know. As if he doesn’t lie awake every night in this bed, tracing spirals into Felix’s thigh when so many others would make better company. As if he doesn’t know Felix dreams about him. 

“Don’t act stupid.” 

“ _Act?_ ” Sylvain echoes. “I must be dreaming if you think it’s just an act.”

He deserves the hard pinch on the ass Felix delivers. “You can’t fool me. If I were anyone else, you’d have me on all fours by now,” Felix mutters, wondering if Sylvain can read his  _ please  _ between the lines.

“Felix...” Sylvain’s hand settles on Felix’s hip once more, hesitant. So unlike him. That careful hand clutches the fabric of Felix’s cotton pants. “I don’t want to mess this up.”

_ Mess this up?  _ Lip curling in disgust, Felix releases Sylvain and rolls over to face him, still in his grip. His pants twist around his waist until Sylvain lets him go. “Coward. You’re messing it up as we speak.” 

Sylvain recoils. “What are you talking about? I’m trying to save our friendship.”

“ _Save_ it?” Only the small amounts of patience and maturity Felix developed over the past five years stop him from declaring their friendship over if Sylvain doesn’t make a move in the next five seconds. “You’re an even bigger fool than I thought you were.”

“What do you want me to do, Felix? Bend you over and make you scream my name?” 

“I would never,” Felix interjects. It’s a challenge.

Sylvain’s eyes burn even in the dim light. “Don’t tempt me.”

Is that a challenge, too? Felix doesn’t blink. They aren’t touching anymore but Sylvain’s stare has him in an iron grip. 

“You of all people should know that this,” Sylvain taps his own chest and then Felix’s, “is how I fuck things up.”

Is that what he’s afraid of?  _ The nerve.  _ Felix has half a mind to bail for his own room, but he just scowls. 

“You really are a coward,” Felix snaps. “Do you think I’m some floozy, here for a good time, or because I want to tame the wolf?” Felix knows exactly who Sylvain is. He’s seen Sylvain at his lowest and still wants him. He should say that, but instead, he snarls, “Do you think I’m after your Crest?”

Sylvain’s nostrils flare. “Of course not! But that’s why…” His words descend into grunts, and he runs a hand through his hair, pushes hard on his own scalp. “That’s why I’m scared, Felix. You’re my best friend. I can’t lose that.”

Anger fizzles out in both of them and Sylvain looks down at the bed. Something Felix can only acknowledge here and now possesses him, and he reaches for Sylvain’s face, caresses it. 

“You idiot.”  _ You sweet, wonderful idiot.  _ “If you haven’t scared me off by now, what makes you think I’m going anywhere?” 

Skepticism flashes across Sylvain’s face. Even just a trace of his usual cheek sparks hope in Felix’s chest. “You get pissed at me if I skip training,” says Sylvain. “What are you going to do if I stand you up or, I don’t know, cheat on you?”

When Sylvain lands a blow during a sparring match, it’s because Felix didn’t see it coming. His verbal blows land even harder, and this one knocks the wind out of him Felix. Not because he thinks Sylvain would ever be unfaithful, but because Sylvain jumped right from  _ make you scream my name  _ to  _ exclusive relationship. _

Felix narrows his eyes. “You wouldn’t even try.” 

It’s not a threat, it’s a fact, because it’s been months of the two of them together all day and side by side in this bed every night. The war takes a lot from them, but it can’t have stolen all of Sylvain’s sex drive. This must be killing him, Felix must be killing him, flush against him every night but untouchable.

And yet he keeps coming back.

Felix isn’t trying to tease him ( _oh,_ the possibilities), but he’s frozen, too, and he deflects blame as well as blades. 

It’s all Sylvain’s fault, after all. Making Felix fall in love like this.

Felix clicks his tongue. “If anyone should be afraid, it’s me. I’ve never…” But now that they’ve moved on to _his_ inadequacies, his confidence drains, and so do the words from his throat. 

“You’ve never what?” Sylvain tilts his head in Felix’s hand and Felix jerks away. Sylvain presses on anyway. “Is this about sex? I thought you—did you lie to me in your letters?”

“No,” Felix growls and rolls away from him. He wishes he didn’t tell Sylvain about those failed attempts, but somehow, Sylvain always wheedled the stories out of him. Each encounter had been worse than the last—messy and boring, stiff hands and clueless lips—but lackluster sex wasn’t half as bad as suffering through Sylvain’s “helpful” tips.

_ It’s totally normal to blow your wad early the first few times. You can practice while you’re jerking off. Try thinking about something else when you feel like you’re gonna come. Hey, you could think about me! That always seems to make you mad. _

Sylvain couldn’t have given worse advice if he’d tried. 

“Felix…” Sylvain’s touch brings him back to the present. “Talk to me.”

“At least you’ve been in relationships,” Felix mutters. He can’t make himself look at Sylvain, but that makes it easier to be honest. “All I’ve done is had bad sex with people I never talked to again.” 

“Hey, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.” Sylvain means it (even though he’s wrong). He squeezes Felix’s shoulder. “If it makes you feel better, I don’t talk to most of the people I’ve slept with, either. Although, the sex was pretty good.”

“Shut up.” Felix growls it to cover up his relief. Sylvain sounds more like himself, but it’s all him, isn’t it? The bravado and the self-doubt, the callousness and the concern… It’s all Sylvain, and Felix wants all of him. 

“I guess we’re both terrible at this,” Sylvain sighs. He slides his hand from Felix’s shoulder up to his neck, and it takes all of Felix’s discipline not to squirm (he’s so ticklish there) as Sylvain goes on. “But the difference is, I hurt people. I’m not a nice guy, Felix, and I couldn’t bear the thought of hurting you.”

“Bold of you to assume I didn’t know you’re an asshole,” Felix snaps, feeling more like himself, too. Neither of them are  _ nice guys; _ they’re war-hardened killers, and quite possibly the only people in the world who can understand each other. But since Sylvain refuses to just let this be a tender moment, Felix jerks out of Sylvain’s reach. “You never cared about hurting me before.”

“That’s different,” Sylvain fires back. “That’s just, I don’t know, guy stuff. Besides, you’ve hurt me plenty, too.”

Felix can’t argue with the last part, but he sneers anyway. “ _Just guy stuff._ That’s all there is between us?”

“Felix…” Sylvain groans his name, low and lusty. It tosses Felix’s stomach. “You know it’s not like that.”

“No, I don’t.” Felix grits his teeth, and it’s a game of chicken now. “All I know is that you’ll fuck anyone but me.”

The words hang in the air, oppressive. Sylvain takes a deep breath.

“But you’re not just anyone to me, Felix.” His voice is soft enough to end the argument, if only Felix would let him.

“Right,” Felix spits. “You care about me too much to fuck me.”

Sylvain’s eyes go as wide as Felix’s are narrow—but only for a second—and his fire burns. “I didn’t think you wanted me to until you started grinding your ass into me every night, so forgive me for trying to take things slow!”

“Oh, bullshit,” Felix growls. “You’re the one stabbing me in the thigh every morning.”

“Morning wood is normal!” 

“Morning wood goes away!”

For once, Felix is almost grateful that Dimitri haunts the monastery instead of sleeping these days. No one should hear this ridiculous conversation. 

“I was trying to be considerate,” says Sylvain. 

“You?” Felix snorts. “Since when?” 

Sylvain doesn’t know the meaning of the word. There’s nothing considerate about flaunting his conquests in front of Felix’s face for all those years. Certainly nothing kind about the way he treats all those girls. He can only manage to be a gentleman when it means resisting Felix. It’s so hilarious that Felix almost laughs out loud. 

“Since I saw you again, okay?” Sylvain’s voice, rough and raw, cuts off Felix’s urge to laugh. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to sleep next to you? Of course I’m going to get turned on, look how hot you are! And when you wear your hair down?” Sylvain answers his own question with a moan and Felix can’t even bring himself to reject the compliment.

But Sylvain has to know that he keeps Felix awake, too. Felix can’t look away from his face now, the angle of his jaw, that elegant brow, those warm eyes that always petrify and delight him. Even now, fuming, Felix can’t bear to blink until he hears what Sylvain has to say. 

“Five years, Felix. I missed you every single day,” Sylvain says, or confesses. Pleads. Prays. He slides closer, like he’s afraid Felix won’t hear him. “I have to do this right, because I can’t lose you.”

“Don’t I have any say?” Felix wonders aloud, even though he hasn’t made a move yet either. He softens the edges of his voice; Sylvain listens better this way. “There’s no guarantee either of us will make it through the day. Stop wasting my time.”

Sylvain’s brow wrinkles, but not in anger. He takes a deep breath, like he’s out of his depth even though this (sex, kissing, feelings) is what he does. It’s overwhelming for Felix, too, teetering on the precipice of something so new with his oldest friend. They’re nearly nose to nose now, close enough to feel the heat radiating off each other’s skin. Sylvain swallows, and Felix hears it, watches it bend his throat. 

It’s Felix who makes the next push. “Are we doing this?” 

As always, Sylvain pushes back. “Are we?” 

And just like they promised, they go down together. 

It’s no small thing, kissing his best friend. But the ground doesn’t split beneath them and the ceiling doesn’t collapse. Some walls cave in, but those were bound to come down anyway. 

Of course Sylvain is good at this. He teases Felix with soft pecks at first, just his lower lip, and Felix chases him, a breath behind. He can’t kiss as much of Sylvain as he wants, but the gentle curve that crowns his mouth begs to be tasted, and Felix does, traces it with the tip of his tongue. 

Maybe Felix is keeping up, because Sylvain starts making low, soft moans from deep in his throat. In the 20 years they’ve known each other, he’s never heard Sylvain like this, and Felix wonders what other delicious sounds he can coax out of him. 

The moans grow louder when Felix gets him supine, prettier when he tips Sylvain’s head back like a chalice and drinks in his kiss. 

It’s a delicate but simple shift, to lose their clothes and themselves in the space between friends and lovers. With a whimper of his name, Sylvain understands, pulls Felix onto his lap and winds him up with words and touch. Letting go isn’t so difficult. Not with him. 

“Think about me, okay?” Sylvain says it with a wink. Felix rolls his eyes and looks away, but he bites his lip, too. Sylvain pervades his every thought, his every breath and whim, bringing him close and pulling back, again and again until it’s not enough.

Even if they make it through the war, Felix will never get enough of him.

He takes them both in hand and they die a small death, together.

Sunbeams invade the room and Felix’s eyes, and he buries his face in Sylvain’s freckled shoulder to escape them.

“We’ll be late for training,” Sylvain says. He pinches Felix’s waist and adds, “Or did I tire you out too much?”

Felix scoffs, “Don’t flatter yourself.” But with echoes of his cries still bouncing around the ceiling, his words don’t sting. Old habits, that’s all.

Sylvain understands.

“We could skip, you know,” Sylvain offers. He shifts to the bed and Felix flinches under the light until Sylvain blocks it. “Run some drills of our own?”

It’s tempting, like the scar that passes through Sylvain’s left nipple. But as much as Felix wants to accept, as much as he wants to taste that scar, some things never change.

“Another time.”  _ Soon. Tonight._ Because some things have changed, but only a little.

Unfooled, Sylvain juts out his swollen lower lip, no doubt still tender. “But what if the Empire attacks today and we meet a tragic and untimely end, having only just begun to realize the depths of our passion for each other?”

Old habits, indeed.

“Then I’ll use my last breath to curse you for neglecting your training and distracting me from mine.” 

Before Sylvain can claim him, Felix slips out of bed and casts a glare over his shoulder. It’s only thanks to great discipline that he can hold his scowl at the sight of Sylvain, still naked and lazily draped over the majority of the bed.

“Fine,” Sylvain grumbles. He brightens, stretches his arms over his head, and Felix has to look away to hide his blush. “What do I get if I beat you?”

That’s easy. “You get to walk away from the next battle with all of your limbs.”  _ You get to keep your life. _ Getting dressed distracts Felix from the pain. 

“Aww, is that all?” Sylvain whines, but at least the rustling sounds mean he’s dressing, too.

It pushes Felix to add, albeit with an exaggerated sigh, “And you can bathe with me.” He’s not half as put out as he sounds.

Sylvain swings an arm around his shoulder like he knows. “Deal. And if you beat me, we can explore that fantasy you told me about.”

“What?!” Felix snaps his head toward Sylvain, so fast his brain lags behind. He remembers saying something about Sylvain getting him on all fours, but that old dream lingers, too.  _ You’re stuck with me now. I’m your husband. _ “Which—what are you talking about?”

Sylvain’s smirk sends his stomach spiraling, and that damnable wink is growing on him. “Guess you’ll have to beat me to find out.”

Today, they leave the bed as friends and lovers, but it’s a subtle shift. They’re still the same people. Felix never backs down from a challenge, and he doesn’t intend to start now. Win or lose, he gets stronger.

He’s always been stronger with Sylvain at his side. 

“You’re on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i still haven't finished the game and yet here i am, writing vague sex with no beta. the working title for this chapter was "horny feelings chicken" and i hope i accomplished that. thanks so much for reading!
> 
> [@peppiestbismilk](http://www.twitter.com/peppiestbismilk) on twitter


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